This morning I awoke frantic, as I dreamed I was late to my cousinâs surgery. However, in all actuality, my alarm still had twenty minutes before it shouted at me to wake up and get ready to start the dayâ on time. After a brief cup of coffee, I left the house at eight a.m., and met my cousin at Shriners’ Hospital in Beverly Hills. Today he is having four inches of his small intestine removed by slicing into his stomach and detaching the part of his guts that are rotted and inflamed. Heâs been battling Chronâs disease for years, but hitherto a few months ago, his Chronâs had been under control, though heavily medicated. So today I am sharing my support for his condition by sitting, waiting and just being a presence at the hospital while heâs in surgery. As I lethargically wait on the 3rd floor admissions ward, my mind wanders into memories past and of course, towards the thought of you, my wife. After our first encounter in San Jose, almost ten months ago, my back began to feel somewhat strange. But I was in Love, and couldnât be bothered by mere physical manifestations of the body. A few days went by and my back began to develop small clusters of red bumps, all targeting a single latitude of my dermatome. The bumps were small at first,Â then grew into larger hives. My first inclination was bug bitsâ they must be bug bits and therefore I did not go to the doctors. After a weeks worth of development of this nasty rash, I then humored the notion that these bumps were most likely not bug bits, but probably a rash from something like poison ivy. Therefore I bought a topical crÃ¨me from the supermarket and I began to apply generous amounts of ointment on my infected side. Another week went by and still, there was no sign of remission from the scourge that burned and blistered. I remember talking about the rash to you over the phone, suggesting to you that I may have shingles. You persistently countered my hypothesis with a ridiculing laugh, stating that I definitely didnât have shingles. Another week went byâ only this time, I took my wounds to a doctor. It turned out that I did in fact have shingles and that if I had gone to the doctors earlier, I could have lessened the effect of the virus with anti-viral medication. But since I waited almost four weeks before I went to the doctors, the virus was at a point where it just had to run its course. My ultimate fear was that I was going to visit you a week after my doctorâs appointment, and that you never had chicken pox before in your life. Therefore, you were a potential target and prey for this virus which burned bright red on my tummy. How terrible it would have been if I gave you, my new love, a potentially deadly virus during our second encounter together? When I did return to San Jose the following week, I kept a tight wrap around my blisters; constantly making sure you would not get infected. The anxious guilt I endured that weekend was quasi-unbearable, yet I could not stop my hedonistic tendency to enjoy, or rather love, your company. As I sit here writing about this memory, a tear drops from my burning eye â the physical consequence for my memory of our love. Those were wonderful times we had, even though I was a walking epidemic. I miss you today. I think about you as often as I think about Art. Today, I feel like I took you for granted. This memory is a plague to my thoughts, and keeps me from concerning myself with the physical world around me. This hospital only exists as a sub-reality to me; Instead, my world is inside my head.

You wouldn’t believe how crazy my life has been this week. Every night has aroused my attention, and every day has given me something to work on. The first query of the day is to look for work. The money I had saved is running low and the ominous pressure of being thrown out of my studio and kicked out my house, continually inspires me to find a source of income. I am jealous of your paycheck, dear wife. However, I have a job interview with the USC School of Communication as a graphic designer on this Tuesday. Wish me luck! The job is a full time salary gig with benefits. In preparation for the interview, I have been working diligently on my portfolio to bring with me on Tuesday. Other than the graphic designer position, I don’t have any leads to any other jobs as of yet; but I am still in high spirits about finding work. On the bright side of life, I have completed my first painting in the new studio. The work is a portrait of you and Konanne, lying together in a plush blue void. The skin tones are a pop-surreal mix of flesh and purple. Konanne has a hole in his forehead that is trickling blood and you have a hole in your breast bone, where your heart would be. I can’t say that I enjoyed the process of painting this portrait, but the final result put a smile on my face. I may even enter the piece in a show in late August, but only if I can find a nice frame to compliment the painting. Even if I don’t display the work at the Art show, I will hang the portrait in my studio to remind me why I have to continue to work hard at focusing on my life, instead of focusing on our failed marriage. And speaking of our failures, I would like to apologize to you for failing to answer my phone the last 3 times you’ve tried to call me. However, you must understand, I am afraid of hearing your voice, telling me how well you are doing in San Francisco. The two messages you left were quite opposite from one another, as the first one was sweet and tame, and the second one was fed up and annoyed. You mentioned that you were trying to return the deposit money for our old apartment to me; Mindy, I don’t want that money. My pride and ego are too full to accept your gift. But how can you know this if I don’t pick up the phone? Well I may call you tomorrow and lie to you about how my phone has been out of service for the last week and that I just received all five of your messages the day I’ll call you. You may or may not believe this lie, however, the point of the call will be to tell you to keep the damn money. Go to Hawaii with a new lover or treat yourself to something nice; whatever, I don’t care. Even though it was my money I used for that deposit, I don’t want a thing from you, except your forgiveness and your love. HA! Maybe I could buy your love for the same price as the deposit? Ok, maybe not. Anyway, we’ll see how I feel tomorrow, and maybe you’ll hear from me. I guess I’m a little upset that you only called me to talk business. Well, what are friends for if you can’t discuss business? Oh, wait, I forgot, you’re not my friend (after all, you are my wife.) But please don’t be too mad at me, darling. I don’t mean to be rude by not answering your calls. I truly am afraid of your casual updates. Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, dance. I want to go dancing. You and I never really danced, physically that is; spiritually we danced day and night. However, we never got down. I was in a break dance circle the other night while listening to Sonic Death Rabbit (an awesome band by the way.) But, this is a part of me you will never get to experience. I almost died the other day. A jeep ran a red light while I was crossing the street on my bike. Uhm … yeah. It’s 4 AM. I’m tired. I have to stop writing, love.

I was in my studio tonight, working diligently on a new painting when my cell phone began to vibrate. To my surprise, the caller ID displayed a beautifully frightening phone number – your phone number. Along with your number, a photo of you flashed on the LCD screen. It was a photo I took of you on the train in San Jose from the first weekend we met. You’ll have to forgive me for not answering the telephone, however my hands were too busy painting to fiddle with picking it up. I am working on an oil painting from the picture of you and Konane, drunk together, lying in your bed. It is strange and coincidental that you would call at the exact moment I was working on painting your facial features. I wonder if there was some frequency or interdimensional connection between the painting and your calling? Why did you call me tonight, Mindy? What clicked inside your head that, after three weeks, you felt the urge to connect with me? A part of me wants to believe that you missed me and truly wanted to converse about the recent events in our lives; however, a conflicting part of me wants to believe that you had some pressing issue that needed to be settled, like our divorce, or something concerning the lease agreement. Possibly you got laid yesterday, and so today you could secretly mock me with your inquisitive “how are you” questions, knowing full well that your secret love encounters are more impressive than any response I could give you. To tell you the truth, my hands weren’t too busy to answer the telephone. I lacked the courage to speak to you. I pussied out and turned the phone off. I’m a chicken. You still hold a potentially dangerous power over me, which haunts me every moment I get the chance to decipher the energy behind my daily actions. Tonight, I want to call you my beautiful wife, in person, however this desire will fall short from realization. Instead, I think I’ll go to sleep.

Outside and across the street are socialites standing around smoking cigarettes and chatting about the atrocities of their Wednesday night plight. Through the bedroom window lies a portal to the outside, social and elite world that is hipster Los Angeles. The bar across the way is called the Little Joy, or the LJ for short. Beyond the smoky haze from cigarettes and musk is a beaten down dive joint that most Echo Park or Silver Lake hipsters can’t resist to experience. The outside of the LJ is guarded by an Asian man in his mid-thirties, drunk from his earlier imbibing of libations from the Short Stop, a bar two blocks East on Sunset Boulevard. It’s not proper for a bouncer to drink at the bar in which he is working. Beyond the bouncer is the cramped entryway to an alcoholic’s haven. The LJ isn’t much different from other dive bars, architecturally speaking, however, what makes the LJ special within the hipster scene, is that it has Pabst Blue Ribbon on tap, for three dollars a pint. Now, to you and I, this doesn’t seem to be anything spectacular, however, to your average Hipster, who swears PBR is the essence of a hip drink, PBR on tap is a fantastic phenomena worth every cent spent on this (in my opinion) white trash drink. The jukebox is always playing some eccentric, esoteric melody that I usually find to be just bad taste in music. But, what do I know about good taste in music anyway? You always hated my music, or at least would wait until I left to change the music to what you enjoyed � i.e.: the Cure, Skinny Puppy, Nick Cave, etc. The hipsters flock to the LJ dispensing dollars into the bar’s money hungry mouth, feeding the demons that occupy the sticky bar stools of the LJ counter. The pool tables are swimming with sharks, feeding from the fresh scent of beginner’s blood. I never play pool at bars. The pride and ego of pool players tends to be more than I can take. The range of beautiful persons at the LJ vacillates between attractive and fucking sexy, which complicates drinking alone because no man needs to be teased with a beautiful woman while drinking by one’s self. Yet those are matters out of the loner’s control. I find myself in this peculiar position most every night. I drink by myself, smiling at the randomness of my life, smiling into the air, thinking about you, and comparing the unfamiliar faces of Los Angeles to the unfamiliar faces of San Francisco. Not much changes except for the weather, but even the weather has patterns. Mindy, the point of this is that I’ve developed a dependency on alcohol. I have a drinking problem. And even though I can admit this dilemma, I’ve not an answer as to how I will conquer this devilish mountain. Our separation has pushed me into an ocean of booze, and I’m drowning in the sauce of demons. My mind feels mushy, and my thoughts escape verbalization. Alcohol is slowing down my brain, and I am scared of turning into my father. Fuck, I need a drink.

I constantly think about the smile your face extends towards my suffering. And although you don’t know how intense my suffering is, somehow I imagine you spitefully enjoying my pain and agony. It’s been over three months since we separated, yet my emotions are still saturated with sadness. Each day something reminds me of a lost love and subsequently my state of being declines further into a dark void. When I look at myself in the mirror, a retched disgust overpowers my thoughts and I almost vomit. This self-loathing affects not only my private reflection, but my social interactions as well. There have been times when I feel so out of control, I can’t even leave the house. Suppressing these terrible thoughts is the only way to save myself, though why do I feel the need to be saved? As I was driving home from the art store, I had a vision of you lying on our new bed with your ex-fiance’. Neither of you were wearing clothes; only using one another for cover from the cold. Caressing each other, softly yet without restraint, you two were giggling, reminiscing over the past instances that brought you to the point you are at now, enjoying the comfort of your domestic San Francisco apartment. This image, which struck me as repulsive and vile, soon faded away like the sun that was setting before me. Those two nude lovers were soon supplanted with a new vision of me, in pain and drunk, trying to pull myself off of the street pavement. My skin had abrasions covering my torso and my front tooth was missing. I could literally smell the stench of urine emanating from my pants. As I focused on this premonition, a swelling of sadness erupted within me. I wanted to cry today, but I didn’t even have the courage to do that. With my head spinning and my thoughts in conflict with one another, I pulled off the freeway to have a moment of silence for this terrible vision. I cursed your name twice as I pulled back onto the freeway. It doesn’t matter how true or untrue these apparitions are. What matters is that they vividly affect my day-to-day life. When I meet up with old friends and they ask me why I moved back to LA, I gently explain to them that my marriage just didn’t work out. Some of them are shocked to even hear that I got married in the first place. I re-live our love through the stories I tell to people, however no one dares ask about us. It’s too sensitive a subject I suppose. And so, I re-live our breakup more often than I re-live our love, because the break-up is the most pertinent part of our story right now. Hopefully someday I will be able to look back at our situation and say “Yeah, that was fun! (Like you said on the last day we saw each other). However at the present moment, I can only see darkness, an abysmal state of despair. Fuck! You were so special to me Mindy. I still have a hard time accepting the reality of our relationship, which is to say, the nothingness that I have become to you. We haven’t spoken to one another in weeks, which feels like years, however, I haven’t called you, not because I don’t still love you, but because I’m so afraid of what you have become. The thought of your voice telling me tales of your new loves, or how great your days are, make me wince in emotional pain. Yet these thoughts of your current existence are what keep me alive (I know this seems contradictory. Let me explain.) I want to succeed and better myself, thus proving to you that I’m not the evil psycho you thought me be. Although I don’t want to prove this new me� to get back with you, but merely to reestablish my sanity’s standing with you. I’m not comfortable thinking about your hatred for me.

99 Letters is the documented process of the visceral and emotional experience I had during my divorce. Writing these letters was an attempt to articulate my thoughts artistically and creatively. Read these memoirs as you would read a fictitious book. Syndicate entries using RSS and Comments (RSS).